Oroville, California.
Typical home $302,331 (-1.3% in a year), asking rent $1,436 (+4.7%). Chico, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$631 (+66%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $3,979 -1%
- $306,310$302,331 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $7,830 -3%
- $310,161$302,331 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Oroville$1,587
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Oroville, CA fell 1.3% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Oroville, CA rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Oroville runs $650/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $970 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,086 a month against $1,436 rent: a $1,587 mortgage payment, plus $175 property tax and $324 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Oroville
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,086
- Renting$1,436
- Mortgage only$1,587
Property tax · $175/mo 0.69% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Butte County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $324/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Oroville, Butte County, California
Oroville is a city of 20,042 people in Butte County. Half its households earn more than $52,270 a year and half less, against $67,928 across Butte County; 21% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Butte County was 6.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Oroville is a small city in Butte County with a younger population than many American towns. Incomes here run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than most would expect, while owners and renters are close to evenly split, with slightly more homes lived in by their owners. Winters are cool and mild by national standards, summers get very hot, and the year brings a fair amount of rain.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in manufacturing. Among the largest workplaces in Oroville are Oroville Hospital, Walmart and the Oroville Union High Schools. Unemployment across Butte County is slightly lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before, and relatively few adults here hold a four-year degree.
Things to do. Lake Oroville, a reservoir, and Lake Oroville State Recreation Area, a protected area around it, are both a short drive away. Phantom Falls, a waterfall, is also close. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Feather Falls, another waterfall, and to Bidwell Park.
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- 6,976households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Butte County had 78,544 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 58° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 97° and lows near 63°. About 31 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Oroville weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Oroville
- Oroville HospitalGeneral hospital1,327FTE
- CAL FireCal fire507
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters361
- Butte County Office of Education SchoolsSchool district331FTE
- Oroville Union High SchoolsSchool district269FTE
- Oroville City Elementary SchoolsSchool district266FTE
- Oroville Hospital Post Acute CenterSkilled nursing facilities228
- Thermalito Union Elementary SchoolsSchool district214FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 23 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,073 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Earthquakesrelatively high in parts of OrovilleRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of OrovilleRelatively moderate
- WildfireRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Oroville’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Butte County and the Chico, CA metro.
Oroville home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Oroville$302,331
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Oroville listings, and the typical home goes pending in 50 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Oroville28.30%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Oroville50
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Oroville232
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Oroville43
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Oroville$312,547
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Oroville100.65%
Zip codes with a Oroville address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Oroville — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Oroville
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95966 | Oroville | 28,503 | $1,508 | $302,517 |
| 95965 | Oroville | 21,181 | $1,400 | $301,929 |